He trailed back around to the front of my jeans and cupped my pussy in his hand, pressing hard against me. I could feel the moist heat of my response begin to soak my underwear and wondered if my pants were already wet between my legs.
I felt him unbutton the button on my fly and slide the zipper down. His fingers stole under the top of my thong and I moaned as he found my throbbing clit. He began to stroke me with exactly the right kind of pressure in exactly the perfect rhythm. It was as if he knew my body before he touched it.
He pulled his hand from between my legs and raised it to his face. Drawing in a deep breath full of my scent, he licked the two fingers that had been inside me. He held my eyes with his as the air around us crackled.
"Such a responsive little playground," he whispered in my ear as his hand returned to pleasure me again. "Such a sweet place for my fingers..." He kissed me. "For my mouth…" He kissed me again. "And soon for my cock." This time he put my hand on the erection that was straining under his clothes.
His words ignited me.
And the phone froze me. I hadn't paid much attention to it when he took it out of his pocket and put it on the coffee table. Plenty of people do that. I guess I just hadn't expected it to ring. Or, for him to answer. Considering where his hand was that should have been a little more important than a phone call. Apparently not.
Four
By the time I got back to the duplex, the whole evening really began to sting.
He had given me a sheepish look, grabbed the phone with his 'unused' hand and walked to the far end of the patio with it. I could see him wipe his other hand on his shorts and I suddenly felt unclean. I zipped up my pants and smoothed out my hair. The moment had clearly passed.
The only words I could make out on his end of the conversation were expletives. "Fuck", "asshole", "full of shit" and "goddamn motherfucker" were among them. It was obvious that something on the other end was going poorly for Tristan. He shoved the phone into his pocket so hard it's a wonder he didn't rip the bottom out. He didn't make eye contact with me right away, but went over and pressed a button on the kitchen counter.
"Look, something's come up," he told me. "It's Hong Kong."
I guess that was supposed to be a sufficient explanation because he didn't offer any more details. Kwan appeared out of the darkness.
"Kwan will drive you back to your car at the theater. I'm afraid I have to get back on the phone." Tristan looked like an impending storm, all blackness and fury. He turned toward the house and left me standing on the patio with Kwan. I don't know what I expected--a kiss goodnight, an 'I'm sorry' or 'I'll give you a call.'--but what I got was zilch.
I numbly followed Kwan around to the side of the house where a BMW sedan was parked. He opened the passenger side of the car and I got in.
We rode in silence toward town. Kwan seemed about as uninterested in me as it was possible to get. He was probably thinking to himself how Tristan was 'slumming' with the hoi-polloi. That I was definitely not in Tristan King's league.
"So, Kwan, are you Tristan's butler?" I asked it a little belligerently. I had already put my thoughts in the poor guy's head and I felt like reminding him of his place.
"Actually, I'm many things. While we're here, I look after the house. When we're in New York, I often act as chauffeur. When we travel to China, sometimes I translate. Always, I am his bodyguard."
Kwan looked all of five foot eight and about 140 pounds soaking wet. He noticed me sizing him up.
"I have a tenth degree black belt in Taekwondo. It is sufficient to do most things except perhaps stop a bullet.
"He needs a bodyguard?"
"Yes, he does." Kwan made that word the last of that conversation. I very much wanted to ask why, but the man's tone was unmistakable.
I decided to take a friendlier tone. "You're from Hong Kong?"
"No."
I had somehow managed to offend the man to the point where all I was going to get out of him were one word answers.
Jenn was asleep when I got in, so I was spared the 'I told you so' lecture from her. I sat on the couch in the dark and wondered what it was going to be like when I had to face him at rehearsal the following night. I felt foolish, cheap and immature. I knew better than to expect to meet someone like Tristan King on equal footing but I let myself be seduced by the handsome face and a few tired phrases he had undoubtedly used a thousand times. One minute he was all charm and French cheese and the next he was as cold as stone. Had I really expected to matter?
***
Much as I dreaded facing him, I dutifully showed up at the theater the next night. I needn't have been so nervous. Tom announced that Tristan had been "called away". I took his place on stage and had the bizarre experience of having to read his lines all night long. Every word I spoke rung back in my mind in his voice and every movement I made across the stage reminded me of how he walked, how his elegant hands--so recently on and in my body--punctuated his flawless delivery and how his coiled power reflected in the smallest action.
My rational self naturally commanded that I stop obsessing about a man who had so little regard for me. But my other self couldn't obey. I had a primal connection to the man that no amount of logic could break.
The second night without Tristan went badly. I was a poor substitute coach and the rest of the cast just wasn't feeling it. We accomplished little other than running lines and going through the mechanics. Tom was frustrated and called an early end to the rehearsal.
I was about to lock the front door when the house phone rang in the box office.
"Mahkeenac Little Theater," I answered.
"Is this Raina Harding, the sexiest stage manager in New England?" Tristan's voice poured like liquid satin into my head and set it spinning.
"Tristan."
"I'm just above San Francisco. My pilot will have me at Teterboro by four a.m. I'm going to catch a few winks and then check in at the office. I'll take a 'copter in the afternoon and make rehearsal in time."
Of course it would be Teterboro. Tristan King wouldn't be flying into a commercial airport. "Tom will be happy to hear that."
"Are you happy to hear that?"
Yes. No. I don't know. "Rehearsal didn't go well tonight."
"Raina…the other night."
"You had business. I know that."
"I'm not good with some…things. I hope you're okay with me...us."
"It's okay, really." No, it is not okay. It hurt…Is there an 'us'?
He turned up the heat in his voice. "I'm looking forward to...more of you. You're utterly fuckable, did you know that?"